Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation was born in weeks after the 2016 election, as co-founders John deBary and Alex Pemoulie commiserated about the state of the world. The two hospitality veterans wondered if there was more they could to do help restaurant workers to change the industry practices that affected their daily lives, especially those related to wages, racial and gender equity and mental health and substance use. As they discussed ways to organize and fund change, John’s husband, philanthropic advisor Michael Hamill Remaley, proposed forming a community foundation to raise and distribute funds to community-based social change efforts.
After a year and a half of planning, building a board of directors and working with Lawyers Alliance to lay its institutional foundations, RWCF received its 501(c)(3) status in May 2018, becoming the first public charity utilizing the community foundation model to advance the interests of a particular labor segment. In its first year, RWCF raised $11,000 and made grants to three organizations—Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, OutsmartNYC and Brandworkers—$1,000 each.
In 2019, RWCF’s board grew to 20 people, representing a strong mix of restaurant and nonprofit professionals. After a few New York-based events, the annual Negroni Week charity, and our own “First Birthday” fundraiser, RWCF raised $40,000, allowing us to make grants totalling $13,500 to eleven organizations, including Women in Hospitality United, Drive Change, Restaurant After Hours and Hot Bread Kitchen.
The RWCF board began 2020 with modest plans and a goal of raising $100,000. But by early March, government officials had begun discussing the likelihood of massive shutdowns to stop the spread of COVID-19. In response, RWCF’s board held an emergency session to discuss how best to support our community.
We launched the Restaurant Workers COVID-19 Crisis Relief Fund on March 16, and by the end of the year, RWCF had raised nearly $7 million for crisis relief and almost $1 million more for our core mission. But we hadn’t just raised funds. We’d also distributed most of that across the nation: over $3.325 million for direct financial assistance through our case management partner Southern Smoke; $845,000 to nonprofits providing crisis relief services like food, legal assistance and services for undocumented workers; and $1.2 million to Ascendus to establish the Restaurant Futures Loan Program. Alongside fundraising efforts, RWCF developed resources for out-of-work professionals and launched the #RWCFTalks Series, Restaurant Managers Network, and Restaurant Workers Speakers Bureau.
Just this year, RWCF formed the Restaurant Workers Racial Justice Fund to dismantle white supremacy and anti-Blackness in the restaurant industry, and we continued our work in crisis relief and systems-change grantmaking. In May 2021, Kiki Louya joined RWCF as its first-ever executive director. Leaning on Louya’s industry leadership and nonprofit fundraising power, RWCF is seizing this moment to change the structural and cultural issues that sparked its existence back in 2016.